sustainable living | CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS

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Designing with Native Plants

More and more of our customers are becoming interested in native plants, which we have been promoting since we opened our nursery in 1992. If you would like to know more about why growing native plants is important to our survival, click here. Now there is a design book, Native Plants for Small Yards by Kate Brandeis, that can help you seamlessly incorporate native plants into your landscape.

I am dedicating this post to doctors, nurses, and other health care workers all over the country who are still caring for very ill COVID-19 patients while the rest of us think about reopening. This crisis has taken a terrible toll on them as shown in this excellent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer where three doctors discuss how they cope. We owe it to them to continue to be careful and not spread the virus.

Nursery News: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops within the US. For catalogues and announcements of local events, please send your full name, mailing address, and cell number to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com and indicate whether you are interested in snowdrops. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

.Each design in the book begins with a rendering of what the garden will look like, here a back patio garden

The author begins by explaining why native plants are important and her purpose in writing the book: introducing readers to the beautiful native plants that are suitable for small, residential landscapes. Brandeis wants to dispel the notion that native plants are messy, hard to manage, and do not fit in with suburban neighborhoods. She then gives some general design advice and explains how to use the nine design templates in the book.

Designs are provided for the following areas frequently found in small yards: corner gardens, mailbox plantings, water features, containers, downspout areas, rock walls, front porches, sidewalk strips, and back patios.

A schematic drawing, plant list, and photos are provided for each design.

Each of the nine suggested designs is rendered in a schematic drawing, which is clearly labeled to show plant placement and the number of plants needed per square foot. Next to the design is a list separating the plants by height and color coordinated with the design.

Alternate plant lists for varying cultural conditions are also provided.

The plants used in each schematic drawing are chosen for the conditions listed above the plan. For example, the back patio design is for drier conditions and more shade. However, on a third page for each design, the author provides alternate plant lists for varying conditions, also color coded for height and to show where they go on the plan. For the back patio design, there are plant lists for drier areas with more sun, wetter areas with more shade, and wetter areas with more sun. At the end of the design section, Brandeis explains how to install and maintain the gardens.

There are four pages of full color drawings of invasive plants.

Even if you do not use the designs, the book is worth purchasing just for the resources in the back. Appendix A features drawings of the 17 most common weeds, all of which we seem to have in our garden. Appendix B has renderings of 13 invasive plants to be avoided.

The book includes an extensive table of Native Plants for Small Spaces.

There is a 13-page Native Plant Table, listing native shrubs, vines, perennials, and grasses for various light and soil conditions. The table shows the scientific and common names, height, width, color, bloom time, and use in design for each plant as well as the plant’s light and moisture requirements and tolerance for deer, rabbits, heavy shade, drought, clay soil, black walnuts, etc. Finally, Brandeis profiles ten small trees suitable for residential landscapes.

If you wish to purchase this valuable and informative guide, it is available from the Lehigh Gap Nature Center located in Slatington, Pennsylvania. It is a great time to support this nature center (and all nonprofits) as they have been closed down by COVID-19. The book costs $10 plus postage and is available by emailing mail@lgnc.org. It makes a great gift for all your gardening friends and relatives.

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Our woodland garden, which is filled predominantly with native plants, is in full bloom right now. If you would like to see a video of our woodland in bloom, there is one on our Facebook page here, just scroll down past upcoming events to videos.

Blogs are a lot more fun for everyone, especially the writer, when readers leave comments. Scroll down to the end of the page to the box where it says “Leave a Reply” and start typing—-it’s easy!

Carolyn

.Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information. If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.) or to subscribe to my blog, just click here.

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Native Plants for June and Beyond

Posted in garden to visit, green gardening, landscape design, my garden, native plants, organic gardening, Shade Gardening, Shade Perennials, sustainable living with tags Actaea racemosa, Ashe magnolia, Asplenium scolopendrium, black cohosh, Bringing Nature Home, Carex muskingumensis Oehme, Carolyn's Shade Gardens, Douglas Tallamy, flowering raspberry, hart's tongue fern, hydrangea quecifolia Snowflake, Hydrangea quercifolia, Indian pink, Magnolia ashei, oakleaf hydrangea, palm sedge, rubus odoratus, Spigelia marilandica, woodland Carolyn's Sbade Gardens on June 19, 2019 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Indian pink or spigelia is the most requested plant at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens. None of our suppliers have any luck growing it in pots, so we are trying to grow it ourselves for sale in 2020.

A long time ago, Carolyn’s Shade Gardens made sustainable practices one of its missions. We have fulfilled this in many ways, including making a wide range of native plants available to our customers, showcasing native plants in our display gardens, and getting rid of our lawn. Since we purchased the property in 1983, all our gardens have been maintained organically without herbicides, chemical fertilizers, or supplemental water. We mulch with ground leaves, and never use potentially toxic hardwood mulch.

Nursery News: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops to US customers only. For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and cell number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

The long spires of black cohosh are one of the highlights of our garden in June.

You can read more about our sustainable practices and why they are important in these posts:

Your Native Woodland: If You Build it They Will Come, how to create your own woodland filled with native plants

Your Native Woodland: If You Build it They Will Come, Part 2, more native plants for your woodland

My Thanksgiving Oak Forest, the importance of native plants to our survival

Your Most Precious Garden Resource, step-by-step guide to mulching with ground leaves

Letting Go Part 1: The Lawn, the dangers of lawn chemicals to humans, pets, and the environment

Do You Know Where Your Mulch Comes From?, toxic substances in shredded hardwood mulch

Strike a Blow for the Environment in your own Yard, how to incorporate large quantities of native plants into your garden

Looking back over these posts, I realized that many of them feature native plants that bloom in the spring. As 2/3 of the plants in our display gardens are native, I wanted to highlight some of the summer- and fall-blooming varieties. Every photo is taken in our garden, and every plant is native, most to Pennsylvania. If you want to know the Latin name, click on the photo.

We have two gigantic walnuts in our display gardens and have no trouble growing native plants under them. Shown here is oakleaf hydrangea, my favorite of all the hydrangeas, surrounded by blue wood asters, which bloom in October.

My favorite oakleaf hydrangea is ‘Snowflake’ with gorgeous double flowers. Double flowers are not as good for pollinators, so the majority of our oakleafs have single flowers.

Blue wood asters and foamflowers make a weed-free groundcover under our walnuts.

Coral bells or heucheras add color to the garden all season. However, many of the coral bells marketed to gardeners do not grow well in the mid-Atlantic. At Carolyn’s Shade Gardens we only sell heucheras that thrive in this region, including my favorite ‘Berry Smoothie’.

Our woodland is quiet in summer and fall but blooming along the entrance path is the native shrub, flowering raspberry. I love it for its light green almost tropical leaves and large raspberry-colored flowers.

Maidenhair ferns with their delicate and unusual leaf pattern and wiry black stems are ornamental all season. They spread slowly to make a bigger and bigger patch.

Our Ashe magnolia with its gigantic white flowers just finished blooming. At its feet are sweeping stands of culver’s root, which will bloom in late July and August.

White baneberry is just starting to make its creepy fruit, which looks just like its other common name: doll’s eyes. I like everything about this plant—its delicate shrub-like habit, lovely white flowers, and unique berries.

The yellow and green variegated leaves of ‘Golden Shadows’ pagoda dogwood are beautiful all season, while the spiderwort at its base produces lovely blue flowers now, and the New York ironweed next to it will bloom in August and September.

Giant Solomon’s seal on the right towers over non-native Solomon’s seal to its left. In the foreground is twinleaf, whose elegant and unsual leaves look good all season.

.Evergreen hart’s tongue fern (in front) provides interest all year. In the back, our gigantic stand of bottlebrush buckeye is getting ready to put on its breath-taking show.

We have had no luck with native bleeding-hearts, which we have tried in many different locations in the garden, until it planted itself in the stump of our dead ash tree. Sometimes you have to let the plants decide where they want to grow!

Indian pink on the left with variegated ‘Oehme’ palm sedge on the right and fall-blooming blue stemmed goldenrod at its base. Palm sedge is a great grass for shade—it happily grows in full shade in our garden.

Indian pink enjoys this sunny, dry location, even re-blooming in the fall. Over it is a fringe tree, which blooms in late spring.

We are not native plant purists as our business also specializes in snowdrops, hellebores, and hostas. However, we believe that gardeners should try to incorporate as many native plants in their gardens as possible for the reasons that author Doug Tallamy so eloquently describes in his ground-breaking book Bringing Nature Home. It’s not about saving the planet: it’s about the survival of humans, including our children and grandchildren, on the planet.

Carolyn

Nursery Happenings: You can sign up to receive catalogues and emails about nursery events by sending your full name, location, and cell number (for back up contact use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Subscribing to my blog does not sign you up to receive this information. Please indicate if you will be shopping at the nursery or are interested in mail order snowdrops only.

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 6b/7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and only within the US.

Facebook: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens has a very active Facebook Page where I post single photos, garden tips, and other information that doesn’t fit into a blog post. You can look at my Facebook page here or click the Like button on my right sidebar here.

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information. If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.) or to subscribe to my blog, just click here.

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Your Native Woodland: If You Build It They Will Come, Part 2

Posted in green gardening, landscape design, my garden, native plants, Shade Perennials, sustainable living with tags athyrium Ghost, camassia, Camassia leichtlinii 'Caerulea', Carex Bunny Blue, Carolyn's Shade Gardens, Cercis canadensis 'Alba', creeping phlox, Erigeron Lynnhaven Carpet, foamflower, gardening with native plants, ghost fern, Mertensia virginica, native plants for gardens, native plants for shade, native sedge, native woodland, Phlox stolonifera 'Home Fires', Phlox stolonifera 'Sherwood Purple', robin's plantain, Tiarella cordifolia, Tiarella cordifolia 'Brandywine', Trillium luteum, Virginia bluebells, white-flowered redbud, yellow trillium on May 5, 2017 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

The woodland at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens with mayapples, golden groundsel, Viginia bluebells, dwarf Jacob’s ladder, wild ginger, and white-flowered redbud, all native to Pennsylvania in the mid-Atlantic US.

I am very excited to report that my blog has now gone over 2 million views. To see the numbers, look at the counter on the right sidebar labeled Site Stats Since 11/3/10 (if the sidebar is not visible, click the snowdrop banner at the top). That’s a lot of people! And what have they been reading? Well, my fifth most popular post is Your Native Woodland: If You Build It They Will Come, which I wrote in April 2012. In it, I tell readers how to create their very own woodland filled with native plants. To read it, click here.

Nursery News: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas. For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

Photos of the six of the native plants recommended in the 2012 post, clockwise from the left: Celandine poppies and Virginia bluebells, dwarf Jacob’s ladder and wild ginger, ‘Blue Ridge’ creeping phlox, and northern sea oats.

In 2012, I recommended that readers use nine plants to create their native woodland: Virginia bluebells, Celandine poppy, dwarf Jacob’s ladder, white violets, creeping phlox, wild ginger, golden groundsel, and northern sea oats. All the botanical names are in the original post. I still believe that those nine plants are the best natives to start your woodland because they are beautiful, easy to grow, and spread quickly.

Photos of the remaining three native plants recommended in the 2012 post, clockwise from upper left: white violets, blue wood aster, and golden groundsel.

I am hoping that after five years, gardeners have been successful with the original nine recommendations and are ready to broaden their selection. Below, I profile eight more easy-to-grow native plants. Keep in mind that the more plants of each variety you plant, the more satisfied you will be with the result. If you are on a budget, plant five, seven, or nine of one or two of the recommendations rather than a smaller quantity of each. Use plenty of compost and mulch with ground or whole leaves, and then stand back and watch them spread.

Here are my suggestions for additions:

.Foamflower, Tiarella cordifolia, thrives in high shade and well-drained soil. Here it is with blue wood aster right under my massive black walnut trees.

Last time I recommended ‘Blue Ridge’ creeping phlox, but purple and pink creeping phlox are even more vigorous. This is my sweep of the purple variety, Phlox stolonifera ‘Sherwood Purple’. It really likes edges so plant it along your woodland path.

‘Sherwood Purple’

Creeping phlox also comes in pink—the cultivar ‘Home Fires’.

Native sedge, Carex laxiculmus ‘Bunny Blue’, grows right at the base of trees and reproduces itself nicely, spreading its beautiful silver-blue hue around the woods.

This is a western native camassia, C. leitchtlinii ‘Caerulea’. It grows through out my woodland in filtered light but also in my part sun meadow. Each plant increases to a gorgeous clump and blooms in May.

A very unusual native plant called Robin’s plantain, Erigeron pulchellus ‘Lynnhave Carpet’, makes a tight ground cover of fuzzy gray leaves at the edge of my woods. In May, it produces multitudes of daisy like flowers. This patch started from a single plant given to me by Charles Cresson.

There are many ferns that thrive in my woods but none do as well as ghost fern. It is a native hybrid (lady fern x Japanese painted fern) rather than a straight native, but it makes up for its non-native heritage with its beautiful silvery gray leaves and striking upright habit.

Your woods wouldn’t be complete without understory trees, and nothing works better than our Pennsylvania native redbuds. I use white-flowered redbud, Cercis canadensis ‘Alba’, in my woods because I love blue, yellow, and white together. ‘Alba’ is pictured here with yellow trillium, Virginia bluebells, and Celandine poppy.

White redbud with native hardy geranium, ginger, Virginia bluebells, cinnamon fern, mayapples, and golden groundsel.

It is a pleasure to walk this path in the spring.

Carolyn

Nursery Happenings: You can sign up to receive catalogues and emails about nursery events by sending your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net. Subscribing to my blog does not sign you up to receive this information. Please indicate if you will be shopping at the nursery or are mail order only.

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 6b/7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

Facebook: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens has a Facebook Page where I post single photos, garden tips, and other information that doesn’t fit into a blog post. You can look at my Facebook page here or click the Like button on my right sidebar here.

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Bucks County PA Tour

Posted in garden to visit, native plants, Shade Perennials, sustainable living with tags Bowman's Hill tower, Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve, Bucks County PA, Caltha palustris, Canada mayapple, Carolyn's Shade Gardens, Dicentra canadensis, eastern trout-lily, Erythronium americanum, houstonia caerulea, marsh-marigold, Mertensia virginica, New Hope PA, quaker-ladies, red trillium, squirrel-corn, toadshade, Trillium erectum, Trillium luteum, trillium sessile, Virginia bluebells, yellow trillium on April 24, 2017 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

The bluebell meadow at Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve in New Hope, Pennsylvania (PA) USA, is at its peak right now.

My brother, Nick Walker, and his company, Cottage Industries in Wayne, Pennsylvania, did such a wonderful job on our recent home remodeling that Michael and I thought it would be fun to take him and his wife to dinner. He lives in Stockton, New Jersey, near New Hope, Pennsylvania, giving us a great excuse to spend the night in the beautiful Bucks County area and visit local restaurants and garden related venues. I know readers often follow in our footsteps so if you have any questions please email.

Our first stop was the Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve, a 134 acre sanctuary for native plants with 3.5 miles of trails through various habitats. This is another view of the breath-taking bluebell meadow, featuring Virginia bluebells, mayapples, twinleaf, and Celandine poppy.

Squirrel-corn and Celandine poppy at Bowman’s Hill.

.yellow trillium

Quaker-ladies

red trillium and squirrel-corn

The real marsh-marigold, Caltha palustris, a PA native plant. Please do not confuse this with lesser celandine, Ranuculus ficaria, which is an extremely destructive, non-native, invasive plant on the PA banned plant list, click here.

Canada mayapple

toadshade

yellow or eastern trout-lily, Erythronium americanum

After a few hours at Bowman’s Hill, including some shopping in their extensive native plant nursery, we walked around the scenic town of New Hope, PA, which is right on the banks of the Delaware River. Many of the buildings date from the 18th century.

We ate lunch in New Hope at Nektar, a small plates restaurant with amazing views of the river and town. We liked it so much we went back for dinner.

The next morning we walked from the inn to Bowman’s Hill Tower, built in 1930 to honor General George Washington and the troops stationed near there during the American Revolution.

The tower has spectacular views of New Hope and the Delaware River. Unfortunately it was not open so we had to look through the woods to the river.

Next we were off to Paxson Hill Farm in New Hope, a 32 acre property with a nursery and very unique and extensive gardens.

Sweeps of ‘Sagae’ hosta, variegated Solomon’s seal, ‘Lilafee’ epimedium, and cimicifuga near the Japanese garden.

The Paxson Hill display gardens include this full scale, underground hobbit house.

After a delicious lunch at the Stockton New Jersey Farmer’s Market, it was back to work at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens.

Carolyn

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 6b/7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

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2017 Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show (MANTS)

Posted in flower show, green gardening, How to, my garden, organic gardening, product review, sustainable living with tags Baltimore Maryland, Carolyn's Shade Gardens, fort mchenry, helleborus x molly's white, MANTS, Mid-Atlantic Nursery and Trade Show, molly's white hellebore, organic soils, star-spangled banner on January 15, 2017 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

A beautifully designed display decorating the MANTS booth of one of my wholesale suppliers.

Last week Michael and I attended the Mid-Atlantic Nursery and Trade Show (MANTS) at the Baltimore Convention Center in Maryland. MANTS is a yearly event in early January with over 960 exhibiting companies covering 300,000 square feet (seven acres) of the convention center and hosting 11,000 attendees. We go to MANTS not only to get ideas about new products and plants for Carolyn’s Shade Gardens, but also to discover potential new suppliers and renew acquaintances with existing suppliers. I thought you might enjoy a quick peak at what goes on at a trade show of this size.

I am very excited about this new hellebore that Carolyn’s Shade Gardens will be selling in 2017. It is called ‘Molly’s White’ and is a sister plant to the best-selling ‘Penny’s Pink’. I already have it in my garden, and it’s doing quite well. My ‘Penny’s Pink’ plants have lots of buds showing right now. to read more about this newer type of hellebore, click here.

There are many beautifully displayed plant exhibits at MANTS like the one above featuring an edgeworthia, camellias, and hellebores. It is difficult with the odd lighting to get a good photo though.

If you start flowers and vegetables from seed, you can’t go wrong with Hart Seed Company, a 100-year-old, family owned and operated business, specializing in untreated and non-GE (genetically engineered) seed. They support independent, local nurseries by refusing to sell to big box and discount stores.

Colonial Road, based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, makes very comfortable, recycled plastic Adirondack chairs that come close to looking like the high maintenance wood version (at least if you buy it in the white shown in the poster instead of the kaleidoscope of colors displayed here). I loved my wooden Adirondack chairs but was constantly replacing rotted slats, and have you ever tried to paint one? Let me know if you are interested in seeing mine or buying any as Carolyn’s Shade Gardens can get them for you.

It is tempting to turn to harmful chemicals when confronted by the possibility of Lyme disease or Zika virus. Thankfully you don’t need to. Here’s Mark Wilson, President of Natural Repellents LLC, holding his ground-breaking product Tick Killz, a natural insecticide made from 100% organic ingredients and safe for children, pets, beneficial insects, and the environment. It controls deer and other ticks, mosquitos, fleas, mites, and aphids, among other insects. If you spray your property, this may be the product for you, 1 oz. makes 5 gallons.

I wouldn’t consider using anything but organic potting soil and mulch to grow vegetables for my family (and even in my perennial gardens). Coast of Maine makes 100% organic products using predominantly lobster and crab shells mixed with seaweed and blueberry bush trimmings. I have used their potting soil for containers at my family’s house in Maine with great results. Their website has a store locator to help you find local nurseries carrying their products, click here, and Whole Foods carries them.

Unlike most nurseries, I mix my own potting soil using compost with ProMix added to lighten it. ProMix has a high proportion of sphagnum/peat moss, which cannot be sustainably harvested. Ground coconut hulls or coir is a sustainable product, and the condensed block above, which yields this wheelbarrow-full when water is added, reduces transportation and storage costs. However, the product is made in Sri Lanka so I am not sure where I come out.

The folks from Jolly Gardener have just introduced a new line of organic soils and mixes. I always want to support companies who decide to take the organic route!

Given the trend towards legalization and what a big business this is becoming, I was surprised there wasn’t more marketing to this specialized segment of the green industry.

Another fun aspect of MANTS is seeing the lengths exhibitors go to attract attendees to their booths. This tree touched the roof of the convention center, and the holly and evergreen next to it are huge too.

Michael standing next to the biggest tree spade I have ever seen.

Amazing boxwoods

Baltimore is a fun city to visit. We had a delicious dinner at Woodberry Kitchen, a farm-to-table restaurant located in a charming re-purposed factory.

We visited Fort McHenry, a late 18th century, star-shaped fort guarding the entrance to Baltimore Harbor. Francis Scott Key composed “The Star-Spangled Banner” in 1814 about the flag flying at Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore against the British in the War of 1812.

orpheus-statue-fort-mchenry-1-12-2017-2-51-48-pm

On the grounds of Fort McHenry, you will find this somewhat startling 24 foot statue of the Greek mythological figure Orpheus on a 15 foot tall base and clothed in nothing but a fig leaf. It was commissioned in 1914 to commemorate Francis Scott Key for the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Baltimore even though “The Star-Spangled Banner” did not become our national anthem until 1931. Click here to read the rather humorous background of the statue.

Carolyn

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 6b/7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

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Mt. Cuba Part One: Formal Gardens

Posted in garden to visit, green gardening, landscape design, native plants, sustainable living with tags garden design with natives, gardening with natives, Mt. Cuba, Mt. Cuba Center, native plants for gardens, natives for formal gardens, US native plants on June 30, 2016 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

The Colonial Revival manor house built at Mt. Cuba in 1935 by the Lammot du Pont Copelands.

For Mother’s Day my family surprised me with a visit to Mt. Cuba Center in Hockessin, Delaware. Although I had visited this garden in the early 1990s before it was open to the public, I haven’t been there since. What a mistake! I was so enthralled by what I saw that I went back three days later to explore the gardens more thoroughly.

The courtyard in front of the manor house as well as the gardens surrounding it are all very formal.

Mt. Cuba Center is the former home of Mr. and Mrs. Lammot du Pont Copeland. Mr. Copeland was the President and Chairman of the Du Pont Company while Mrs. Copeland was a pioneer in the movement to protect and appreciate US native plants. In the 1960s, the Copelands began installing extensive native, woodland gardens on their 582 acre property. In the 1980s, they focused their efforts on developing a private botanic garden to study native plants of the Appalachian Piedmont. When Mrs. Copeland died in 2001, Mt. Cuba became a public garden with limited access. In 2013, it was opened for general admission in the spring, summer, and fall.

The house is beautiful from every angle, here the terraces in the back.

Mrs. Copeland wanted Mt. Cuba:

“…. to be a place where people will learn to appreciate our native plants and to see how these plants can enrich their lives so that they, in turn, will become conservators of our natural habitats.”

With that goal in mind, the Copelands developed the 50 acres surrounding their home into display gardens highlighting native plants in formal and informal settings. All of it is spectacular, and I hope to write two more posts on the woodland gardens and the trillium collection. This post will focus on the use of native plants in the formal gardens directly around the house.

Mt. Cuba formal gardens 5-8-2016 1-22-17 PM The view from the terraces.

Plants native to the US and particularly the Delaware Valley are a favorite of mine so I loved every part of Mt. Cuba, but I was most intrigued by the use of natives in the formal mixed borders. Mt. Cuba demonstrates that native plants work just as well around the house as “foundation plantings” as they do out in woodland gardens where they are usually found. In the following photos, almost all the plants are native species found on the East Coast of the United States or cultivars of natives:

Mt. Cuba formal gardens 5-13-2016 10-46-16 AM

Mt. Cuba formal gardens 5-13-2016 10-46-32 AM

Mt. Cuba formal gardens 5-8-2016 1-24-44 PM

dwarf ninebark and native azaleas

‘Carolina Moonlight’ baptisia

Oakleaf hydrangea as a foundation planting.

Goldenstar, Chrysogonum virginianum, as a groundcover.

Containers filled with native plants decorate the terraces.

If you would like more information about using native plants in a formal design, click here for an interview on this subject with Travis Beck, Mt. Cuba’s Director of Horticulture. He states that native plants were chosen to achieve the character of an English garden without staking, fertilizing, or watering. The all-native redesign of the formal gardens has resulted in a very significant increase in pollinators.

I hope that you will have a chance to visit Mt. Cuba Center and its amazing display of East Coast native plants. I found it inspirational and a source of many ideas for my own gardens.

Carolyn

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 6b/7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

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Strike a Blow for the Environment in your own Yard

Posted in garden essay, green gardening, groundcover, landscape design, my garden, native plants, organic gardening, sustainable living with tags Aster cordifolius, blue wood aster, Bringing Nature Home, Carolyn's Shade Gardens, Chrysogonum virginianum, creeping phlox, Douglas Tallamy, gardening with native plants, golden groundsel, goldenstar, lawn replacement, moss phlox, native landscapes, native phlox, native plants for shade, native woodland, Phlox stolonifera, Phlox subulata, Senecio aureus, Viola striata, white violet on April 26, 2016 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Golden groundsel, Senecio aureus, is the best native plant for ground cover.

I write a lot about the things we do at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens to support the environment: gardening organically without herbicides and chemical fertilizers, doing little supplemental watering, composting, mulching with ground leaves, getting rid of our lawn, landscaping with large quantities of native plants, and promoting natives at the nursery.

Carolyn's Shade Gardens Woodland

Our native white-flowered redbud surrounded by native plants.

You can read more about these practices in these posts among others:

Your Native Woodland: If You Build it They Will Come, how to create your own woodland filled with native plants

My Thanksgiving Oak Forest, the importance of native plants to our survival

Your Most Precious Garden Resource, step-by-step guide to mulching with ground leaves

Letting Go Part 1: The Lawn, the dangers of lawn chemicals to ourselves and the environment

Do You Know Where Your Mulch Comes From?, toxic substances in shredded hardwood mulch

Our woodland in April with Virginia bluebells, wild ginger, golden groundsel, and mayapples—all native.

My guide to creating a native woodland has been especially popular. However, most gardeners don’t have vast areas of woods to convert to native plants but still want to make a difference. And I am sure that most people realize that planting three milkweed plants, though admirable and to be encouraged, is not going to save the monarch butterflies. So what can you do?

. Viola striata

Native white violets, Viola striata, used in quantity as an edging along the front of a border. The violets spread rapidly by seed, filling in empty areas and preventing weeds.

One solution is to find ways to include large quantities—a critical mass—of native plants in your garden, no matter what size. You can accomplish this by replacing non-native ground covers like pachysandra, vinca, ivy, euonymus, and turf grass with native ground cover plants. It is easy to do and you can start small by using spreading native plants like the violets above as edging for your existing beds. Soon you will be eliminating whole swathes of your lawn! Here are some more ideas of plants to use:

Native ‘Purple Beauty’ moss phlox, P. subulata, used as an edging.

Phlox subulata 'Emerald Blue'

This patch of native ‘Emerald Blue’ moss phlox has been in place for at least a decade and requires no maintenance at all. It is evergreen so is present year round like pachysandra but provides you with beautiful flowers and the native insects with food. Its mat-like habit excludes all weeds.

Phlox subulata 'Nice 'n White'

Native ‘Nice ‘n White’ moss phlox used to replace non-native vinca, which you can see behind it. This location is quite shady and the moss phlox thrives. All it needs is good drainage.

Our original planting of native ‘Nice ‘n White’ moss phlox is filling in to create a solid blanket while we continue to move down the hill adding new plants.

Native ‘Tennessee White’ dwarf crested iris, Iris cristata, used to edge our raised beds. I expect these clumps to double in size by next spring.

Senecio aureus

Native golden groundsel, Senecio aureus, the yellow flower in the photo above and the first photo, makes the best ground cover of any native plant. It spreads aggressively and is evergreen and mat-forming like pachysandra but also produces beautiful, fragrant flowers suitable for cutting. Like pachysandra it is too aggressive to be mixed with other plants, but unlike the pachysandra in our area it is not subject to alfalfa mosaic virus.

Native goldenstar, Chrysogonum virginianum, is another creeping plant that makes a good edger.

Chrysognum virginianum 4-26-2016 11-47-51 AM

Because the goldenstar was working so well at the edge, we decided to replace a whole section of our lawn with it.

Phlox stolonifera 'Sherwood Purple'

Two years ago we replaced another section of our lawn with native ‘Sherwood Purple’ creeping phlox, P. stolonifera. This phlox grows in part to full shade and forms a flat, weed-choking mat that stays green all winter.

Native blue wood aster, Aster cordifolius, replaced another section of lawn at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens that surrounded a gigantic black walnut.

Native blue wood aster blooms in the fall and grows in part to full shade.

Doug Tallamy explains in his amazing book Bringing Nature Home* that we can make a difference for the environment and the plants and animals (including us) which are struggling to survive there, by planting native plants in our suburban gardens. I hope I have given you some good ideas for accomplishing this laudable goal.

*Profiled in my blog post My Thanksgiving Oak Forest.

Carolyn

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 6b/7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

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What’s Going on at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens This Fall?

Posted in Fall, Fall Color, green gardening, How to, landscape design, my garden, sustainable living with tags Carolyn's Shade Gardens, fall gardening, grinding leaves, grinding mulch, ground leaves, leaves as mulch, mulching with leaves, pine needle paths, pine needles on October 30, 2014 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Fall is a beautiful time of year in the CSG gardens, especially right now while the sugar maples are turning.

Blog followers who are also customers received an email in September letting them know that our nursery would not be selling plants this fall. Carolyn’s Shade Gardens (“CSG”) has gotten so busy in the last five years that we have been unable to do anything besides sell plants. By remaining closed this fall, we hoped to better prepare for spring, complete some much needed garden renovations, and make some capital improvements to our potting and shipping areas. This post will show exactly what we have accomplished so far.

CSG uses a staggering amount of ground leaves to mulch the garden beds, and an equally large amount of pine needles to cover all of our paths. The photo above shows our stock pile for spring once the beds have been mulched and the paths refreshed (so the actual amount required is a lot more). The piles are about five feet high and wider than tall. Our own massive deciduous trees provide the leaves, which we grind in the driveway with a lawnmower. The pine needles are collected from the sides of local roads.

We highly recommend mulching with ground leaves. For step-by-step instructions with photos, click here. If you don’t want to do it yourself, my son and his business Practiced Hands Gardening can supply the ground leaves and do the mulching for you. Just email him at practicedhandsgardening@gmail.com.

Extensive renovations have been completed to the terrace by our front door. The grass was removed so that we no longer have to haul a lawnmower down the narrow stone steps. We decided to try pine needles as a replacement. They are free and easy to install and refresh plus I like the look with the newly installed stepping stone path. Gravel might have been more suitable from a design standpoint, but the area floods occasionally so we decided to try pine needles first. We also added more of many of the perennials that were working and eliminated some perennials that had self-sown to overwhelm other plants.

The back of the rock garden on the first terrace is also being renovated. The area had filled in with vinca and self-sown garden phlox. We are adding a lot more stones and hope to create a path through the middle for ease of viewing.

We have moved a lot of trees and shrubs like this double Magnolia sieboldii, one of my favorites, which was planted at the bottom of the garden where the drainage is poor. Magnolias like to be well-drained so we moved it to a drier area up by the house.

Six hundred pots of perennials are planted in the fall for spring sales. Here they are stacked next to our carport with an initial covering of ground leaves. Eventually the cover will be six inches thick. Some perennials do not do well in pots so we also plant a lot of stock in the ground in the fall.

Snowdrops are propagated in the fall and planted in the ground for spring sales.

The photo above shows 21 crates containing 820 miniature hostas. We usually only winter over 20 to 30 leftover mini hostas. However, this year several of my wholesale hosta suppliers decided to close their businesses. I purchased and divided extra plants in the spring of cultivars that I want to try to keep going myself only to find out in September that my main mini hosta supplier, with whom I had already placed my spring 2015 order, was going out of business. We decided to take as much of our order as was left in stock and potted them up this fall. At least for spring 2015, many of your favorites, including several of the mouse ears, will still be available. Sadly, a lot of great minis like ‘Appletini’ and ‘Crumb Cake’ will no longer be available in the trade.

There is a lot more to do outside, but we are also hoping to make some significant capital improvements in the carriage house to make potting the plants we grow here and shipping snowdrops and mini hostas more comfortable and efficient. Believe it or not we have spent weeks cleaning out this area in preparation for the renovations, but there is a lot more to do.

More of the trees that power the CSG gardens with their leaves.

Enjoy fall,

Carolyn

Nursery Happenings: You can sign up to receive notifications of catalogues, sales, and events at the nursery by sending your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net.

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

If you are within visiting distance and would like to receive catalogues and information about customer events, please send your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net. Subscribing to my blog does not sign you up to receive this information.

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Longwood Gardens: The New Meadow Garden

Posted in garden to visit, green gardening, landscape design, native plants, sustainable living with tags Carolyn's Shade Gardens, Longwood, Longwood Gardens, meadow garden Longwood, meadow gardening, native plants at Longwood on September 5, 2014 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Nursery News: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas. For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

.The entrance garden outside the visitor’s center at Longwood is lush and tropical right now.

Michael and I are members of Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, US, and visit on a regular basis. We have been excitedly awaiting the opening of Longwood’s new meadow garden. We visited the meadow this week and were very impressed.

A longer view of the entrance.

Another pretty entrance to the rose arbor.

The scope of the project is immense. The garden is 86 acres filled with native plants appropriate to a meadow habitat. There are three miles of walking trails through the meadow and its environs. What Longwood has created in this meadow through ecological management of the property for native plants and animals is breathtaking and magical. I highly recommend a visit right now because the meadow is at its peak. However, for those of you who aren’t local, a virtual tour follows. Keep in mind that photos cannot truly convey the amazing diversity and breadth of this project.

A patch of Joe Pye weed in a sea of goldenrod, sunflowers, and other native plants.

Native grasses in the meadow area in front of Longwood’s scenic barn complex.

The newly restored Webb farmhouse, built in the 16th century by one of the original landowners, houses a very informative exhibit on the history of the area and the evolution of the meadow through the seasons.

Three miles of trails circle and crisscross the meadow.

The native sunflowers really stand out.

Bands of color through the meadow are created by swathes of different plants.

Some areas are still filling in so the meadow will look even better next year.

Longwood’s bluebird box program is over 30 years old and fledges an average of 170 bluebirds a year.

Over 1,100 native trees and shrubs have been added to the woodland edges bordering the meadow.

The pictures make the beauty look subtle, but it’s not. The sensation of walking through the meadow with the sun shining, the bees buzzing, the butterflies nectaring, the birds collecting seeds, and the grasses swaying in the breeze cannot be captured in a photo. If you can visit Longwood, try to do it now so you can share our magical experience.

I will leave you with the following quotation, for me the answer to the ending question is a resounding yes:

“What if, instead of depicting nature, we allowed nature in? What if, instead of building and maintaining artistic creations, we worked to develop and manage living systems? What could we learn . . . about how nature works? Could we create landscapes that were more efficient, more connected, more effective, and ultimately more valuable?”

Travis Beck, Director of Horticulture Mt. Cuba Center

Carolyn

P.S. I am excited to report that the stat counter for Carolyn’s Shade Gardens blog has now recorded over 1,000,000 views. Thank you to all my readers all over the world!

Nursery Happenings: You can sign up to receive notification emails by sending your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net.

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

28 Comments »

Camden (Maine) Garden Tour 2014: Part 2

Posted in garden to visit, Garden Tour, landscape design, Maine, organic gardening, sustainable living with tags Avena Botanicals, Camden, Camden Garden Club, Camden Garden tour, Camden House and Garden Tour, Camden Maine, Carolyn's Shade Gardens, Deb Soule, Maine, maine gardens, medicinal herbs, Mid coast Maine, rockland maine, Rockport Maine on July 30, 2014 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Nursery News: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas. For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

The Avena Botanicals apothecary and shop

This post is the second in a series of posts on the Camden House and Garden Tour put on annually in July by the Camden Garden Club. To read the first post, click here. This year’s tour was the 67th annual event, quite an impressive history. Next year is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the garden club. To honor the occasion, the tour will feature “the most-loved homes and gardens from our annual tour dating all the way back to 1948….[including] grand summer ‘cottages’ and gardens, so iconic to the Maine coast.” It will take place on July 16, 2015, and I hope to be there!

The Avena apothecary and barn

The second garden that we visited on the tour was also in Rockport in an area of fields and farms. However, this property is a working farm used to produce the natural remedies and body-care products sold by Avena Botanicals Herbal Apothecary. Avena is a 32 acre certified biodynamic farm of which three acres are intensively planted with over 175 varieties of medicinal herbs. It was begun in 1985 by herbalist and author Deb Soule and moved to its current picturesque site in 1995. Over 100 hand-crafted products, sold there and by mail order, are produced on site almost exclusively from plants grown on the farm.

Although not a typical garden tour garden, Avena’s working farm is planted with design as well as practicality in mind. It was a wonderful change to wander through the peaceful and relaxing areas surrounding the farmhouse and see all the well-labeled medicinal plants covered with butterflies, honeybees, and native insects. The apothecary shop and gardens are open to the public weekdays from May through September, 12 to 5 pm. If you are traveling in the Camden area, Avena is well worth a stop.

Avena founder Deb Soule and her mother greet garden tour participants.

The flowers and seeds of Greek mullein are used medicinally, but it also makes quite a striking addition to the garden.

Mexican sunflower

This circular garden surrounded by a gravel path is filled with many kinds of thyme and lavender.

Carolyn

Nursery Happenings: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is closed for the summer and will reopen in early September. You can sign up to receive notification emails by sending your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net.

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.

8 Comments »

CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS

Archive for the sustainable living Category

Designing with Native Plants

Native Plants for June and Beyond

Your Native Woodland: If You Build It They Will Come, Part 2

Bucks County PA Tour

2017 Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show (MANTS)

Mt. Cuba Part One: Formal Gardens

Strike a Blow for the Environment in your own Yard

What’s Going on at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens This Fall?

Longwood Gardens: The New Meadow Garden

Camden (Maine) Garden Tour 2014: Part 2

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Welcome

Site Stats Since 11/3/10

Email Subscription to Blog Posts

Pages

Click image for links to all articles on snowdrops

Search My Website

All photos and text on this blog are copyrighted and may not be used without my express permission

Top Posts & Pages

Recent Posts

Click image to see Carolyn’s photos in The New York Times

Reader Locations (click to enlarge)

Plant Information (click for website)

Reference Books (click for website)

Places to Visit (click for website)